jschauma writes "It appears that, unlike many other Open Source projects, NetBSD did not find any serious problems
with the much-debated license change of XFree86 4.4.0: it was just imported
into the tree."
Well, since the dispute was about weather or not the new XFree86 licens was GPL-compatable, and NetBSD isn't under the GPL, you wouldn't expect them to have a problem.
Actually you wouldn't expect any of the Linux distros to have a problem either, since the XFree86 libraries are NOT under this new license. But I guess it's just too much fun waging holy wars...
-- Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
At least one BSD is unhappy about the prospect of the new license and is threatening to fork. Hopefully everyone can get together and have a single fork with a license like the older X license if it does end up coming to a fork.
-- And the muscular cyborg German dudes dance with sexy French Canadians
yeah theo can show and put their hands where his mouth is.
WE want to see that XFree86 openbsd fork.
Add to that an Apache fork either.
OpenBSD imported the latest release candidate of Xfree86 with the old license (minus a few files with new license) for use in the upcoming OpenBSD 3.5. So this could be considered a fork.
The Apache httpd server (1.3.29 + patches of about 4000 lines) is in maintenance mode, and Apache httpd 2.0 won't be in OpenBSD anytime soon, with or without the new license.
the XFree86 libraries are NOT under this new license.
Sure, Xlib isn't under the new XFree86 license, but some of the other client libraries such as the one for XRender support are, which makes XRender of XFree86 4.4 incompatible with GPL apps.
Apache fork? Why? The old Apache licences weren't GPL-compatible either. If that bothers you, you need to write a new webserver from scratch, not fork.
Can someone explain why open source projects are rejecting the new XFree86 license? I looked it over and it looked OK to me, at least for BSD-licensed projects.
Re:Explain
by
Via_Patrino
·
· Score: 5, Informative
I don't know very well since it (what's covered or not) changes all the time, the major problem is with linking.
With the new version you can't make link to GPL programs using Xfree86 As most of the programs (even on *BSD projects) are GPL you can't not run them (I think an exception is when you compile yourself). I'm not sure that problem was resolved.
The other problem is with code reutilization. A lot of people don't want to contribute to a project where code won't be possible to be used in other projects that use GPL (don't know about BSD) because they're incompatible licenses.
Ok, you usually hold copyright for your own code, but, in a project, code often mix so much with other people code. And you don't just code: you debug, test and improve existing code.
Those people aren't interested in making that effort to a code that will be just used by projects (compatible) with that license.
Dude, you are so far out in left field, you may as well start planting daisies.
The new license does *NOT* apply to any of the XFree86 libraries. Hence, there *ARE NO CHANGES* in the way things work, regarding linking to XFree86 libraries. IOW, NOTHING HAS CHANGED, in this regard.
The reason for the bruhaha is nothing more than laziness on the part of the various distros. They don't want to take the time to put "This project includes software from the XFree86 Project." into any of the end-user documentation. IOW, nobody wants to give credit to the XFree86 Project, yet they all want to use software from the XFree86 Project.
Re:Explain
by
Via_Patrino
·
· Score: 4, Informative
All right, I said before I wasn't sure. That's why I didn't give myself karma. But since other people tagged me informative/interesting or they knew very little about the subject (I'm not so far) or there's some real stuff in my comment.
Probably the license on the libs didn't changed, but the news about it did (there was a lot of confusion when the license changed).
Then I prefer to link to what Branden Robinson and Theo de Raadt say. Theo (from this and other posts) and other members of the openbsd team seen to be concerned about wording, future legal problems and making openbsd less free.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, since the dispute was about weather or not the new XFree86 licens was GPL-compatable, and NetBSD isn't under the GPL, you wouldn't expect them to have a problem.
Can someone explain why open source projects are rejecting the new XFree86 license? I looked it over and it looked OK to me, at least for BSD-licensed projects.
According to a FreeBSD-x11 thread, XFree86 4.4.0 will definitely be integrated to FreeBSD's ports collection too.
It looks like the license is only a problem for some Linux distros and Theo.
I saw several comments on the freebsd-ports list that the FreeBSD troops see no problem in the adoption either.
The reason was also the same, clientside libs seem to go free.